To really change the courts you can’t just ‘graft technology’ onto an old fashioned system you have to start with a blank sheet of paper.
Resources for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Law Students
Mediator Academy’s mission is to provide access to the very best educational resources and thought leaders in dispute resolution to everyone on the planet. We’ve come a long way since our original long-form video interviews (over 1000 were produced) to where we are today with adaptive online lessons and modules. In light of the current challenges that law students and faculty face we are re-engineering some of the richest video interviews from our archives and sharing these resources with you to be used as teaching aids until normal service is resumed. We hope you find them useful.
This digital resource features an interview with Professor Richard Susskind during his time chairing the UK’s ODR Advisory Group back in 2015. In the video he talks about ODR, access to justice (A2J) and what an online dispute resolution system might look like. He also makes a compelling case for re-thinking how we look at dispute resolution, and legal practice in general.
Reflective Exercises
1. What do you think are likely to be the biggest barriers to the adoptions of technology to widen access to justice in your country? (Hint – a look at your Courts Service’s policies are likely to give you some insight). How might these barriers be overcome?
2. Given what Professor Susskind says about how justice is likely to be delivered in the very near future, and how legal practice will change, what will be important for you and your peers to learn, study and become familiar with in order to meet these challenges in your career? Make a list of skills that you think will be important and share them with your friends.
3. For Irish students (and anyone interested in Ireland’s approach to ADR which thanks to the Mediation Act, 2017, is ahead of the curve) – the Courts Service recently announced the upcoming publication of their 10 year “Digital First: strategy which will implement radical changes to improve access to justice in Ireland. Read this article https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/plan-to-unclog-our-courts-by-allowing-some-offenders-to-plead-guilty-online-38869530.html on the strategy and identify which of these initiatives fit in with Richard Susskind’s proposed online courts plan.
Activities
1. This interview was conducted in 2015. In the latter part of the interview Professor Susskind makes some predictions about the next 5 – 10 years. We are now at the 5 year mark since his interview. Look at his predictions and do some research on tools, platforms and initiatives. How accurate have his predictions been? What developments are you aware of that he might not have mentioned? See what your peers think and what they have found out.
2. Organise a virtual debate for and against the motion – That Online Courts will only serve the needs of technologically literate.
Further Reading
Professor Susskind’s new book Online Courts and the Future of Justice (2019) is widely available.
This is an article by Professor Susskind about the book https://www.legalcheek.com/2019/12/richard-susskind-my-case-for-online-courts/
Here is an extensive review on the Artificial Lawyer blog https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2019/11/26/al-book-review-richard-susskinds-online-courts-and-the-future-of-justice/
This article gives an overview of developments in the UK since the publication of the ODR Advisory Group’s Report in 2015 https://www.infolaw.co.uk/newsletter/2019/06/online-court-digitisation-justice/
Professor Richard Susskind
Professor Richard Susskind OBE is an author, speaker, and independent adviser to major professional firms and to national governments.
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